In a blog post published on Tuesday, Walmart announced its decision to bring back “sensory-friendly hours” in all of its retail stores in the United States and Puerto Rico. The hours will begin this Friday, November 10, and will remain in effect indefinitely, with Walmart saying there is “no planned end date.” The company said the sensory sensitive hours run from 8:00am to 10:00am local time daily instead of only on Saturday.
The post has a shared byline with a trio of executives. They include vice president of senior vice president and chief belonging officer Denise Malloy Deaderick, executive vice president of US store operations Cedric Clark, and vice president of retail brand experience Alvis Washington.
“Earlier this year, we took a step in making shopping in our stores more inclusive for those with sensory disabilities by taking measures to create a less stimulating environment for a couple hours each Saturday. During the back-to-school season, we changed the TV walls to a static image, turned off the radio and lowered the lights where possible,” the execs wrote in today’s announcement. “The feedback of the pilot program was overwhelmingly positive. These changes may have seemed small to some, but for others they transformed the shopping experience.”
The post includes a brief blurb from a customer, identified only as Andrea T, who expressed appreciation for the return of the sensory-friendly hours, saying in part “little things do make a difference” in the experience when shopping in stores with their autistic child.
If Denise Malloy’s name sounds familiar, it should. At the end of July, I covered her blog post detailing how Walmart was “embracing belonging” by way of its Adaptive at Walmart initiative. The post coincided with the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act officially being signed into law in July 1990 by then-president George H.W. Bush.
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